National Housing News

I read an article in Inman News today that seemed to say we are in an interesting time nationally regarding the housing market. The median prices across the country continue to slip, while housing affordability is rising a bit if you compare the 3rd quarters for the last 2 years. I had not been paying attention to the affordability index recently and it will be interesting to see how that is affected as the prices adjust. I am curious what others might think that will do to consumer confidence. It would make sense to me that if the affordability of homes increases, so then would consumer confidence. My only thoughts are how soon will the consumer confidence rise after the affordability index rises. A huge jolt of confidence is precisely what I think this market needs. The stock market has had a couple of good rallies recently. I know the White House adjusted it's growth numbers slightly for next year, but growth is good and being on the plus side of that is always good. The other piece of confidence I think is another group that needs a big jolt of confidence is the investors who have purchased mortgage backed securities. Once they start feeling good and the home buyers are confident things will get back on track. It can't be too far away. Let me know what you think. See You In Escrow!

2008, What Is Your Plan?

I know you have barely digested your Thanksgiving Turkey and are still feasting on the leftovers. I know that agents that want to hit the ground running next year are busy doing 2 things. The first thing is they haven't given up on this year. There are many agents putting escrows together right now. The second thing they are doing is putting a plan together for next year. Things like budgets and marketing plans as well as putting new programs together to enable you to hit your goals for 2008 are very important. I have never put together a business plan for a real estate agent but I would assume it would consist of many of the same things that my business plan consists of. Goals for revenue, by month broken down in to the number of escrows opened and closed. That would also include an activity plan focused on how many customer referrals you are going to achieve as well as new customers you are going to acquire. One good local resource is the SCORE organization. This is the Service Corp of Retired Executives. Santa Barbara score.org They give free business planning tips. A quick search on the Internet gave me quite a few options. Here are a couple that might help get your juices flowing. About.com has a pretty simple list of helpful ideas as well as a link to a book that the author is trying to sell. I also ran across this blog that looked pretty interesting and easy to follow, Realblogging.com. The blog actually had a couple contributors who posted business planning advice. Good Luck and See You In Escrow!

Happy Thanksgiving!

There are sooooo many things to give thanks for that I couldn't possibly even begin to start and have time to finish. We are very blessed to live where we do and be in the real estate business. I wanted to take a moment and just publicize some of the ways you can help those in this county that aren't as fortunate. The foodbank needs about another 3,000 turkeys. UCSB is organizing it's own food drive. The Unity Shoppe is also in need of food. There are many other organizations organizing food drives for the needy here in our communities. I hope you are able to join in and give back to a community that has blessed all of us very much. Happy Thanksgiving!